A List. Amy-Style.

CoolMum & Dad have been posting about music lately - and it's had me stumbling down melody lane.

Everyone loves a good list, right? Top 5 movies of all time, top 5 restaurants in town, top 5 rock ballads...oooh, rock ballads... The cool 'rents posted about their favorite love songs, complete with videos!

But because my brain doesn't seem to work like other people's, my imaginary list-making turned into a blog. I seem unable to just make a list, without wondering WHY my list is the way it is.

Por ejemplo, why is it that my favorite sing-a-long songs all tell some kind of story? I don't seem to opt for the love songs or the party songs. No, I crank it up for Don McLean's American Pie and Meatloaf's (yes, I said Meatloaf) Paradise by the Dashboard Light. At the top of my lungs, I sing along with Neil Diamond telling the story of Brother Love and his Travelin' Salvation Show. (Hallelujah!) And Billy Joel...well, he just gets his own list, but my favorite Billy tunes? Stories.

Does it have something to do with my affinity for musical theater? Am I somehow transported to full hair and makeup, under the lights, belting about Brenda and Eddie (see: Billy Joel, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant)? Or is it some kind of escapism? Do I long to live the lives in these stories - which have zero relevance to my own? I mean, I am not ever going to watch Manhattan burn to the ground while I am performing a rock show (see: Billy Joel, Miami 2017), nor am I going to saddle up with Billy the Kid (see: Billy Joel, The Ballad of Billy the Kid) and I've never been uptown riding in my limousine with my fine Park Avenue clothes (see: Billy Joel, Big Shot). But I can sing along as if it was me last night.

Paradise by the Dashboard Light, while still not relevant to my life, (I PROMISE), just makes me laugh. Every. Single. Time. And the notion of a big tent revival does kind of resonate with me. (see: Neil Diamond, Brother Love's...)

And what's with me being, like, the world's biggest (and only?) 30-year-old Billy Joel fan? Have you ever tried to participate in a conversation with peers about music or concertgoing or whathaveyou with "Man, the last Billy Joel show I saw completely ROCKED. That face-melting sax solo on New York State of Mind was unreal..." It's a conversation ender. Go on to say you've seen him 8 or 9 times and you'll find yourself alone with your bottle of red. Or your bottle of white. Whatever kind of mood you're in that night.

I like to think it makes me mysterious. I mean, come on, U2? Everyone on the PLANET claims loyalty to U2. They're good. I have their CDs. They are all spiritual yet secular and yada, yada, yada. I get it. YAY, Bono. But finding the spirituality in Billy? That takes work. Practice. It is an art. Someday I will demonstrate. And his talent? Unparalleled. Billy is a musician's musician. (justify, justify, justify...)

So, without further ado, here is my list.

Top 5 reasons why I will never be musically relevant, or, these are concerts I have attended and I am not ashamed to admit it (in no particular order):

1. Neil Diamond - You know you're jealous. Though there are 15 minutes of my life lost somewhere in the middle of that show that I would like to have back. I think the seagull took them.

2. Billy Joel (x8) - I've seen him drunk, sober, married, single, with a full band and with only a piano. Angry, jubilant, but all the time absolutely brilliant.

3. The Beach Boys (x2) - God only knows the good vibrations emitted at those shows.

4. Harry Connick, Jr. (x3.5) - "I saw the Foo Fighters in concert!" "Oh yeah? Did they play Chattanooga Choo-choo? 'Cause Harry played that and it was mind-blowing."

5. Jimmy Buffett - Why does this make me musically irrelevant? Because I COULD NOT WAIT TO LEAVE. More due to the fan base than the artist himself. Everybody loves Jimmy.

*Honorable mention: James Brown, The Temptations, Chicago, KC & the Sunshine Band, dcTalk before they were anything close to good and Hanson.

(p.s. in case you don't recognize him, that's the Piano Man himself on stage. CC: ME.)